Every wonder how a cover is created? Interested in seeing the original copies? You’re in luck. I thought I’d share some of the early progress that ended up becoming this:
First, let’s take a look at a few of the hotties that didn’t make the cut.
This uber hottie was the first fella I considered. But I really thought the lighting did something odd to his nose. And it’s kind of a dark picture. Plus, I felt the helmet and background were distracting.
There were plenty of fine chests to choose from, but this go round, I really wanted… more. But you can see one of my considerations here.
I stumbled across the picture I ended up using and really loved that she looks like she’s whispering in his ear, asking him for what she wants. I love that he has some amaz-ball blue eyes and a magnificent chest. Trevor, my hero, models underwear in his spare time, so a great body was as important as a great face.
Here’s the first draft I threw together.
In my head, I loved the purple background and thought “pink = summery contemporary.” But the font, as much as I loved it, was pretty thin. And not quite right.
So next I went for something a little more “manly.” Blue with a more “football jersey” style font for the title.
Loved the new font. And the color certainly had punch. But I worried that the purple background was too… girly. So I changed it to a soft teal/dark turquoise color to match his eyes. And it was like “pwam!” Which is a combination of pow and wham.
So here’s the next version.
Loved it, but then I wondered if the font was a little to thick, especially when you zoom way out like you see covers on websites like amazon. Bet you never considered that, huh? 
Also, the blues didn’t match as much as I’d like. Back to Photoshop!
I really liked the slightly thinner font, the brighter blue and the composition as a whole. I decided to give her a little lipstick because she looked a little pale. And I also thought it’d be nice to include the tagline with the title. But then I started second guessing the purple color of my name. It just didn’t seem bright enough and there was nothing else remotely purple in the composition.
So…
Ahh. Brighter. Punchy. Two out of three readers agreed. (Important to field test these things.) So I called it done.